~~15 years earlier, September 11, 2001~~

Abbey could not hide the flinch as she heard what was now the unmistakable sound of another body crashing to the pavement outside the portico doors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

She scanned through the makeshift FDNY command post looking for anyone in blue.

"Mickey!" she shouted to her partner, coming from around the corner.

The patrolmen looked up at the sound of his name, "You okay?"

She nodded, "Yeah, My radio is just on the fritz."

"I know." Her TO gestured to his lapel mic, "The repeaters must have taken a beating, a lot of gibberish and static getting through."

She nodded, "So what's going on? These FD guys don't seem to have a straight evacuation call."

"Yeah." Mickey pulled her aside, "Some brass just came through. We're ditching the partial evac plan, ariel thinks some of tower 2 will actually collapse. Fire is going up to do what they can with what's burning upstairs and we're supposed to pull out the folks from the lower floors that had previously been told to stay put."

Abbey tried to focus as she winced at the sound of breaking glass.

Mickey looked to the source of the sound, "Windows have been cracking all over the place."

She nodded absently, "So where do we go?"

Before Mickey could answer someone hollered, "You two!"

The two patrol officers turned to see Deputy Inspector Bell gesturing at them. They quickly drew up and moved over. "Sir." "Yes, Sir?"

"You 10-98?"

Mickey nodded, "We were just about to help clear the 2nd and 3rd floor."

"Negative." Jim Bell shook his head, "We've cleared the PATH station. Assume post at the rear entrance; no civilians. Everyone is to go out via the roads, no one is to go down there."

Mickey nodded, "Copy that boss."

"Good." Bell's attention was diverted as a man in an NYPD wind breaker entered the building with a priest.

Abbey tilted her head in confusion, "I thought we were securing the building from civilians."

The D.I. turned his head back to her, "It's a FDNY chaplain; we can use all the help we can get today."

With a tight nod of understanding Abbey swallowed her retort, "10-4. We'll go secure the station sir."

The inspector was no longer acknowledging them as he jogged after the new comer.

She sighed and turned back to Mickey who shrugged, "Let's go babysit a door."

Shortly after, they had checked on each of the auxiliary doors to the platform and situated themselves at the bottom of the escalator. Abbey was about to comment about how odd it felt to have such a passive assignment when a deep vibration and rumble like a freight train set them off their feet.

The two officers looked wide eyed at one another.

Mickey fidgeted with his radio, "Nothing. I got nothing, you?"

Abbey pulled hers off of her belt and flicked through the stations, shaking her head. "This is 9-Donald 10-66 at WTC Tower 1. Requesting Report."

Nothing but static came through and even that could barely be heard over the din of noise overhead.

"What do we do?" She looked up the still escalator, making out just the edges of several FDNY helmets running through the lobby.

Mickey, took a deep breath through his nose before squaring up with his partner, "Look, I may have more years on the job than you but I got nothing preparing me for this. We received an order to secure this area and that's what I'm going to do until told otherwise."

She nodded but Mickey shook his head, "I dunno though, you're smarter than me and there's no roadmap." He looked over her shoulder, up the stairs again, "We don't know that inspector and he's never gunna know if we stood our post or not. Hell, he may be ordering us to go but with these radios being what they are there's no way of knowing. If your spidey sense is telling you it's time to bug out and find a different assignment I ain't going to be the one to stop ya."

Abbey swallowed. She looked up the stairs and back to Mickey. "Never leave your partner." Her voice wavered but her resolve was firm.

Her partner gave a lopsided grin, "This ain't a regular day."

She shrugged, "A smart guy once told me 'If you can't count on your partner to stick by your side no matter the situation, then what's the point?'"

"Alright." he nodded, "But if we come through this day having done nothing but stand in front of a door we're going to have to make up some war stories."

She chuckled and straightened up. "Okay, well we didn't cover creative writing at John Jay so I'll leave the day dreaming to you."

Mickey began laughing to himself, "Aw man, c'mon. With all this chaos and all that brass running around, I bet we could really dream up some good ones..."

He was cut off as the mic on their radios began to squabble unintelligibly putting both officers instantly on alert.

"Can you understand it?"

"No, can you?"

"Damn it!"

Mickey grimaced, "Alright, tell you what, I'mma just run to the top of the stairs here, see if there's better reception."

"Okay." Abbey nodded and watched Mickey scramble up the stairs.

"OH SHI..." Was the last thing she heard from him as the rumble returned, louder than previously and suddenly a dark cloud of dust and debris surrounded the stairwell and everything went black.